Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness: Moral and Psychological Unity

Abstract

The main topic of the article is to demonstrate the relevance of the psychological approach to traditional ethical issues. The work considers its importance in relation to the plots of forgiveness and self-forgiveness, since the topic of self-forgiveness is generally impossible with classical rigoristic moralizing. In the article, “offended and offender” rather than “victim — offender” act as conceptual pairs, since offense is understood as the relationship between personal acquaintances within the framework of everyday life, and not as an extreme relationship “victim — executioner”. The act of forgiveness is considered as the ability to leave alone one's own negative emotions associated with an offense, which facilitates the state of the offended person, and does not always need to ask for forgiveness from the guilty party. However, forgiveness, according to the authors, does not imply an indispensable love for the forgiven offender. Forgiveness is akin to forgetting the harm done and disappointment in the Other. In the extreme, all forgiveness is unconditional, radical, a manifestation of personal generosity, although, as the article shows, not all authors agree with this. Generosity consists precisely in the ability to leave alone negative feelings of resentment even in relation to what seems unforgivable, in this case it acts as a voluntary gift. The concept of self-forgiveness is an essential psychological component of the ethical consideration of the "resentment-forgiveness" relationship today. Self-forgiveness is an important condition for establishing normal moral and psychological relationships. A person who does not accept, in Jungian language, his own Self, who denies himself as a fundamental imperfection, will project self-denial outside, onto others, and consider them to be guilty of his own suffering. Self-forgiveness and positive acceptance of oneself are necessary in order to be able to relate positively to the Other, especially since human grievances are often mutual. At the end of the article, the coverage of K. Tipping's concept of Radical Self-Forgiveness is given, demonstrating the interpenetration of ethical and psychological approaches to the topic of forgiveness.